Deeper into the Portfolio

This post is a deep dive into some of the concepts I introduced in the first post: My Portfolio Year Starts.
Make sure to read it before you start reading this one :)

A Philosophy of Personal Growth

My goal in life is to be happy, I think that’s a fair starting point.

I know that my happiness comes from things in my life, these things are not very strict or well defined, but they do follow certain patterns, and I believe I recognized some of these patterns in my own life.

One of those patterns I call “People”, people around me in my life make me happy. Simple.
Another pattern I call “Creation”, making something that was conceived by my own mind into a reality makes me happy. Not simple, but understandable.

To be happy all I need to do is experience these patterns regularly - now that’s a Challenge.

Four things can aid me in overcoming this Challenge:

1. Environment - outside influence which I do not have direct control over, but I can get close to or away from if I want to. For example my workplace.
2. Systems - self-constructed outside influence which I have full control over. For example a schedule management app.
3. Tools - outside aids to my abilities. For example a laptop.
4. Self - internal strength and capabilities. For example perseverance.

There is an old saying by Abraham Lincoln:

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

In that metaphor, if the tree is my Challenge, the forest is my Environment, a sharpening procedure is a System, the axe is a Tool, and finally my hands and muscles are my Self.

If I were to chop a tree in six hours, I better have already trained my body to be strong enough to swing the axe, if I didn’t, even 12 hours of sharpening won’t get me anywhere.

So it’s like a diamond shaped tower, in the base there is the Self, supported by it are Tools and Systems and on the very top is the Environment.
The higher up the tower - the easier to build.

By that logic the most difficult thing to build is the Self.
Therefore - personal growth is the first, longest and most difficult step in overcoming the Happiness Challenge.

My Portfolio Year is a part of a life long journey to strengthen my Self, specifically focused on my “Creation” happiness pattern.

In this year I will strengthen my Self “Planning” muscle, this muscle is used for many things:

1. Consolidate internal goals with external goals
2. Making calculated choices
3. Self management
4. Parallelism
5. Life balance

and more.

The “Planning” muscle is crucial to “Creation”, it’s my way of making that connection between my mind and reality, without this muscle I might work hard all day long and achieve nothing, or maybe something entirely different than what I originally conceived.

Phew! That got deep indeed.
But actually, that’s just an elaborate way to say something very simple:
This year I will become better at “Getting Shit Done”.

The Professional’s Obligation of Proof

As established when I introduced A Philosophy of Personal Growth, my main reason for My Portfolio Year is personal growth to achieve happiness.
The lesser reason I want a portfolio is that I believe in “The Professional’s Obligation of Proof”.

That’s a mouthful, but what is it?
Simply put, it’s an answer for the question “Why should I trust or respect you?”
It’s a question we face a lot, in job interviews, auditions, negotiations, commerce, residence, relationships, university, social media, in every single aspect of our lives we are implicitly asked this question.

There are a few good answers to that question:

1. Someone else says so (an institution, associates, a community)
2. Test me (interview questions, homework, a formal test)
3. Look me up (social media, online reputation)
4. Here’s a proof (portfolio, verifiable examples, valuable examples)

Each of these have good and bad examples which I will not get into in this post, but they’re all important in their own ways.
So why emphasize the proof?

Well, I believe that a true Professional is obligated to supply all four when asked to, but for some reason in the Technological and Academical industries there is an obvious lack of proof, it exists but its weight is so much smaller than the other 3 that many don’t bother with it.

So, yes - high quality proof is as important as any other high quality answer, and a good portfolio can be an amazing proof.

My Success Criteria

I outlined 3 criteria for successful portfolio projects:

1. It demonstrates a skill of mine
2. It was a collaboration
3. It received community recognition

Why these three?
Well, the first one is obvious, the second and third are not so.

Why must I Collaborate?

This is about making the most out of this year, as explained in the A Philosophy of Personal Growth section, this year focuses on my “Planning” muscle, which is all about making the connection between my mind and reality.

It is about making myself front problems which are not internal.
It’s not about determination, perseverance or dedication which are purely internal traits which are fully dependent on me alone.
It’s about estimation, agility, calculation, responsiveness and yes - also collaboration.

Other people are a part of reality, but it’s more than that, working with people is a strength on its own, we all know that.

So yeah, Collaboration is a must.

Why must it be Recognized by a Community?

Well, it’s just the simplest way to show value.

My portfolio needs prove my skills, and I claim that my skills are valuable, proving that they are valuable is as easy as showing enough people recognizing it.

It could be stars on GitHub, or retweets on X, or even downloads from PyPi and obviously citations on arxiv.

This means that whatever I do this year - at least half of it will be about the community, either building it, interacting with it, or just being a part of it.